


Introspection, Wanting, & Other New Things

by jujubiest



Series: SPN Finale Fix-Its [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15x20 I don't know her, Background Jack Kline, Background Saileen, Dean Winchester Deserves Nice Things, Fix-It, Fuck the SPN finale, M/M, Since apparently TV writers are allergic to good endings, So I'm going to give them to him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28536492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: Chuck is gone. They're all free. Cas is back. And Dean?Dean now has to figure out what to do with the rest of his life. What he wants out of it.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: SPN Finale Fix-Its [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2051256
Comments: 6
Kudos: 102





	Introspection, Wanting, & Other New Things

**Author's Note:**

> Dean Winchester deserves better. All the characters do, but today I'm sad about Dean specifically. I have SO many things I wanted to put into fics of things he should have gotten to do that I finally ended up just putting a lot of them into a single fic. This is less about fixing the mechanics of that craptastic finale and more about fixing Dean's ending specifically.

Chuck is gone. They're all free. Cas is back. And Dean?

Dean now has to figure out what to do with the rest of his life. What he _wants_ out of it.

It's strange to have no obligations, no pressing need, no impending doom driving him to do each next thing out of sheer desperation. He thought he would feel lighter when he was free, and he does.

He didn't think he would feel unmoored, but he also does.

For the first time in his life, he doesn't know what the next step is, and that's terrifying in all-new ways. Dean's not an introspective person. His life hasn't exactly lent itself to sitting quietly alone with his thoughts and feelings. He doesn't remember the last time he checked in with himself and thought seriously about what he wants, beyond survival and maybe, possibly, someday, to get some rest.

Everything beyond that was a pipe dream, before. But now?

Now he can do almost anything within human capability. Okay, maybe not _anything_. He's pretty sure the ship has sailed on being a, a rocket scientist or a politician, or anything else that requires years of expensive formal education or a spotless police record. But he's never wanted anything like that anyway. No, as far back as he can remember wanting anything, those things were small. Simple. And maybe that's a function of his upbringing and therefore a tragedy. But Dean's not going to sob into his hands over never getting the chance to be president, for christ's sake.

He thinks he'll start small. Something closer to the sounds of "someday" than "maybe in my wildest dreams."

He thinks he'll start with a job.

Lebanon is a small town, but fairly self-contained. Sure, if you wanted a mall or a hospital you'd need to go a town or two over, but all the daily necessities are clustered right there in town. And every small town needs a small-town mechanic.

It takes a little bit of legwork. He doesn't technically have a home address, because nobody can know about the bunker. And he's pretty sure most of his fake identities would crumble under more than a glance's worth of scrutiny. But he's done this before. He knows how to build a name on a flimsy card into a whole person, or whole enough that a guy who still runs a cash-only business isn't going to notice anything worth raising an eyebrow at.

The shop owner isn't that much older than Dean, maybe in his early fifties, but he's gruff and fatherly in a way that makes Dean think of Bobby. He's the kind of guy that thinks a job interview should consist of nothing more or less than a skill demonstration and a firm handshake. He takes Dean to the garage straight away and shows him an old clunker from the 80s, asks him to diagnose what's wrong with it. Dean spends a little time checking out the car's exterior, looks under the hood, and then gives his unprofessional opinion. Fifteen minutes later he shakes the guy--Doug's--hand and walks out with a smile on his face and instructions to be in Monday by 7:30am.

It feels good.

* * *

Some part of Dean had worried that he would find a routine difficult. He remembers the itch underneath his skin during the year he lived with Lisa. He'd tried so hard to make that work, but it always _felt_ like trying hard, and he'd never been able to shake completely the idea that it shouldn't feel that way. Not if it was right.

Not Lisa herself, exactly. Neither of them had been under any illusions about what they were at the time. He'd loved her the way you fall in love with strangers, when you catch them in a moment that makes something about them shine out at you, bright and human and beautiful. Lisa was like that every second of every day. She didn't guard, she didn't put up walls. She loved Ben openly and fiercely and she cared about Dean with a quiet and giving strength that he found himself clinging to on more than one occasion, feeling weak and needy but too tired to hide it.

No, Lisa he had loved easily. Ben he had loved completely. Their life together, though. That had been a hard thing to handle. He'd never felt safe, not really. Never at ease. He'd always been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to come and tear him away. Or tear them apart, leaving him a grieving, angry shell. The mirror image of his father at last.

His life now is so different. _He's_ so different. He doesn't feel settled, exactly. There will always be some part of him that's wild and wanting. But for now, that part of him is quiet, content to let the softer parts of him come to the forefront and enjoy this bit of peaceful routine, however long it lasts.

It goes something like this.

He gets up at 6 every morning, makes himself coffee. Greets Sam, sweaty and tracksuited from his morning run, as he downs an entire bottle of water. Eileen sleeps over sometimes, but she inevitably sleeps in. She does not share Sam's passion for running...one of the many things that endears her to Dean as a prospective sister-in-law someday. They're taking it slow, but Dean can see it. Sam has never been gone on someone like he's gone on Eileen Leahy.

He grants himself the luxury of a long, hot shower after his coffee. He gets dressed. When he goes back to the kitchen for his second cup of coffee, Cas is there. Making toast.

The first time that happened it threw Dean for a loop for a second. He still can't believe Cas is here, after everything. Can't believe he gets to keep this, too, this tremulous thing between them still waiting to be explored.

Because yeah, Dean's an idiot, fine. An idiot for waiting so long before and an idiot for continuing to wait now. But maybe he's taking it slow, too. Maybe he needs that, after everything. Too many of their big moments have been rushed and desperate and on the edge of a knife. He doesn't want this to feel like that, not anymore.

And Cas seems content to wait him out. Show up in the kitchen making toast because he knows Dean won't have breakfast otherwise. Because Dean is still learning to take care of himself the way he takes care of other people, and he's taking that slowest of all.

He eats the toast though. Loaded with butter and strawberry preserves, but he eats it. Grins messily at Cas and gets an affectionate roll of the eyes in return. He heads out the door warm with the feeling that someone is taking care of him, now. It feels...good.

He makes it to work by 7:20 sharp, every morning. If Doug approves of the ten minute lead time, he doesn't let on. Dean gets the impression Doug isn't a man who gives out approval easily, at least not to people. He does whistle, low and nearly suggestively, at Dean's car though. A man after his own heart in that respect. Though he frowns when Dean opens the driver's side door.

"Boy, you need to oil those doors," Doug says, sounding offended on Baby's behalf. Dean grimaces. Yeah, he knows he does. It's probably the one thing he's ever neglected. It's one of those little things about her that keep her from being perfect. Dean always associated that creaking sound with relief, the sound of opening the door to your home at the end of a long day.

Except he has a home now that isn't Baby. And while she'll always be home, still, no matter what...maybe he can let go of that security blanket. Give her doors some TLC.

He makes a mental note and starts his day, which is filled with sun and sweat and classic rock on the radio, time spent on his back under unfamiliar cars, grease stains on his hands and neck and face and shirt. And the kind of work he loves, work done with his hands. Hands trained to kill, fixing things instead. If Dean thinks about it, it's kind of poetic.

Lunch is a sandwich and a cold beer, and Doug isn't a talker but Dean doesn't mind. They sit in a silence that's only a little bit awkward, but Dean thinks it'll grow familiar with time.

And god, he has _time_. He eats his sandwich with a smile.

Doug closes up the shop at 3, so Dean is home and showered by 4:30 most days. He usually spends a little time in his room, just decompressing. Sometimes he reads. Sometimes he listens to a record, beginning to end. Regardless, he's in the kitchen by 6 and making dinner. Cooking is one of the few things he let himself have even when the world was ending, and he pursues it with even more enthusiasm now. Tries new things, recipes he never would have bothered with before. Every once in a while he even surprises Sam with something that's 90% meatless. Eileen shakes her head at him balefully when this happens during one of her visits, but always ends up having a second helping. Dean really can cook, it turns out. Even vegetables.

Cas is there, always, at Dean's left shoulder. A warm presence Dean doesn't quite lean into, not yet. But he will, he knows. One day, he will. Maybe tomorrow, he thinks to himself on more than one occasion.

Jack joins them more often than not as well, and that's a relief Dean didn't realize he needed. The way he treated Jack prickles at his conscience when he looks at the kid, but he needs that guilt. It's a reminder. More than anything, he's just glad that isn't their whole story. He gets another chance here, too, where he knows he deserves it least. He gets to be kind and patient and careful and supportive, and someday it will outnumber the times he was hard and angry and selfish and treated Jack like he was disposable. He gets to be a better father than his own, and he can only be grateful.

After dinner the routine breaks down. Sometimes they end up talking and laughing for hours, at the kitchen table with drinks in hand. Sometimes they head to the den and watch a movie. Sometimes it's just him and Cas on the movie nights, sitting next to each other on the couch, not quite leaning into each other. Sometimes they all go their separate ways for the night, and Dean reads or listens to music again. Sometimes he goes to bed early, just for the simple joy of being in a bed that's his, and comfortable, and quiet. No monsters to fight. No world to save.

(There _are_ still monsters to fight, of course. The world will never be perfect, and someone somewhere will always need saving. But there are other hunters out there, and they're more than capable of taking on the occasional salt-and-burn or nest of vampires. And for anything bigger that might come along, well. Sam and Eileen are working on a plan for that. It's good work, work that puts a spark in Sam's eye that Dean hasn't seen since...shit, since they were kids, maybe. Since before demons and the devil got their claws in him. So it's good, and Dean will take it, even if he's surprised that between the two of them _he's_ the one who's ready to give up hunting, for all intents and purposes, for good.)

Dean sleeps through the night, seven hours instead of four, most nights. He rarely has dreams, but when he does, they're quiet ones.

* * *

Slowly, Dean works other things into his routine as well. It starts, as so many shifts in his life seem to start, with Cas.

Cas knocks on his bedroom door one cold January day. Dean went to bed early, which he's been doing more and more not out of exhaustion, but because it's _cold_. The bunker has pretty decent climate control for something last outfitted in the 40s, but it's still no central heating and air. It stays pleasantly cool in the summer, but in the winter it gets downright frigid some nights. Dean's solution to this is hot drinks, a never-ending repertoire of stews for dinner, and spending as much time as possible curled up under several blankets.

Cas steps inside at Dean's invitation. Dean looks up at him, shivering even wrapped up like a burrito, and can't help but think of other ways to generate body heat.

He pushes that aside, for the moment. _Maybe tomorrow._

"Hey, Cas," he says, forcing the words through slightly chattering teeth. "What's up?"

Cas smiles at him, softly, the way he does sometimes that reminds Dean of the worst moment of his life and the best words he's ever heard. He's still trying to reconcile everything he feels about that day, but sometimes looking directly at Cas makes him so happy he wants to throw away all caution and introspection and just reach out and...

He stops that thought with no small amount of effort. He realizes Cas is holding something out to him. He reaches up and takes it, feels his hand tingle where Cas's fingers brush his skin as he hands it over.

It's. A book.

"It's your birthday soon," Cas says softly. "I know it's customary to wait until the day, but." And jesus, Dean realizes, it is. Forty-four. He's going to be forty-four years old in a week and change.

There was a time he didn't think he'd live past thirty. And if not for the person standing in front of him, Dean realizes, he wouldn't have. He was twenty-nine when he was dragged into the pit.

He looks up at Cas with a smile that's, to his chagrin, a little watery.

"Thanks Cas," he says, his voice rough. He clears his throat and looks back down at the book. It's smallish, he could probably fit it into one of his pockets. It's bound with soft leather, deep brown and pliable under his hands. Dean opens the front cover.

It's not a book, he realizes. It's a journal. He fans through lined pages of thick cream-colored paper, all blank, and looks up at Cas with a smile.

"This is great," he says. "Seriously, man. Thank you."

Cas inclines his head, an answering smile on his face.

"I'm glad you like it," he says. "Happy early birthday, Dean."

He gets early birthdays now, Dean thinks. Because it doesn't feel like jinxing anything, or tempting fate.

God that feels good.

He doesn't write in it that night, too tired and still cold. But starting the following night, he hooks up a space heater in his room and begins to fill the pages. His handwriting is atrocious and some small part of him feels like he's ruining Cas's gift, but he pushes past that. This is his. It's for _his_ thoughts, messy handwriting and all. So he sits down at his desk each night before bed, and he puts them down on paper.

He doesn't have to stop and think very hard about what he wants to write. It pours out of him, not really a diary, not a case journal like his dad's. What Dean finds himself writing instead is a story.

The pages fill up fast, even when he tries to write as small and neatly as he's capable of. It doesn't take him long to be halfway through the journal, and by the time he's there he realizes he's writing not just any story, but a love story.

Their love story.

* * *

The writing cracks something open inside Dean. He finds himself reaching for new things all the time, now. New recipes to try out. New books he wants to read. New memories with his family. He persuades Jack and Cas to try ice skating. He gets Eileen to go fishing. He and Sam take a weekend road trip that's just for fun, no hunting involved.

And on that trip, they pass a music store in St. Louis. Dean stops. He eyes the gleaming polished surface of an acoustic guitar, something in his chest pulling toward it. He goes inside and comes out with a brand new guitar in a hard case and ignores Sam's raised eyebrow and amused smile.

He probably can't be a rock star like he dreamed at sixteen. But he can re-teach his hands something else that isn't killing. He can make them make music.

It comes back to him surprisingly quickly, once he's alone in his room with the door closed. He picks out a few notes, then strums some chords aimlessly. Then he opens his laptop and starts looking for some guitar tabs and videos, still seeking new things to try.

He learns a few of his favorites, albeit heavily adapted for acoustic guitar in most cases. Led Zeppelin of course, AC/DC, Guns N Roses. He plays "Sweet Child O Mine" softly, nearly turning it into a lullaby. He plays "Thunderstruck" like something to square dance to, grinning like mad the whole time. He reaches out, tentatively, toward newer music, the kind of stuff Sam and Cas listen to. To his surprise, a few songs do catch his ear. He plays the quietest rendition of "Daddy Lessons" he can manage, bracing himself all the time for Sam or Cas to hear. Not that Cas would care, he loves Beyonce, but...again, taking it slow. Dean's changing into someone that won't care if his brother and his...Cas hear him playing a Beyonce song. But it's a process.

Of course, Cas does hear him, eventually. But not that song.

It's another artist entirely, and probably not one Cas has listened to given his stated favorites. And Dean didn't mean to play so loudly. It was late, he wasn't trying to wake the whole house. But it spoke to him. He got into it. And he forgot himself a little.

_"In the mirror I saw my surprise. You know gray hairs like to hide on a head that didn't think he'd live past thirty."_

There's a soft knock on the door, and he freezes. But it's Cas, so he tries to relax and invites him in. Cas sits on the foot of his bed, faces Dean where he sits in his chair, guitar in his lap.

"You play beautifully," Cas says, his old habit of doling out heartfelt compliments like they're undeniable truths making Dean's face heat up.

"Uh, thanks," Dean replies, forcing down the impulse to handwave the praise away, make a self-deprecating joke, minimize the moment. It's hard, but he manages it.

"Can I listen for a while?" Cas looks at him like he expects to be told no. Dean couldn't tell him no if he tried.

"Sure." His voice is barely above a whisper. He has to tear his eyes away from Cas, focus on his fingers on the guitar strings. If he's looking at those eyes he knows he won't be able to play a damned thing.

He starts the song over from the beginning. Fights his blushing and his fear and the slightly crazy desire to do something drastic, like toss the guitar aside completely and join Cas on the bed, find a yet another brand-new use for these hands of his. Killer's hands, mechanic's hands, writer's hands, musician's hands. He has callouses in places he never did before, shallow cuts from nothing more drastic than a careless kitchen knife, smudges of ink and shop grease instead of blood. 

What would his hands look like, if he let them learn the planes and angles and weight of his angel? What new features would they take on in the role of lover, what dark talents would they repurpose?

He's aching and afraid to find out, all at the same time. That wild and wanting part of him is awake, suddenly, and demanding its turn.

He finishes the song shakily, his voice and fingers trailing off on a note that falls a little flat.

Cas is staring at him, mouth open a little as though he has a thought trapped just behind his tongue. Dean stares back, because it's familiar. Oddly comforting. Magnetic in a way he's been fighting for nearly thirteen years.

God, he's so tired of fighting it.

He sets the guitar aside, carefully. The space between his chair and his bed is not large, and he's across it in a single step, well into Cas's space, eyes still locked, unfaltering.

He moves and Cas moves with him, shifting not to re-establish distance between them but to make room for Dean, like it's easy, natural. Like they've done this a thousand times before.

They've never done this before, but it doesn't matter. It's like picking up the guitar: he can only guess at each note and chord, but all his guesses seem to be right. His lips meet Cas's like they belong there, his hands map the unfamiliar territory of his body with the skill of seasoned explorers, faced with a new adventure but well aware of how to find their way. And Cas, for all his endless patience before, responds now like someone who's been starving, or drowning, suddenly confronted with food and air. He holds Dean so tightly it hurts, and Dean loves it.

God, Dean loves him. Has loved him all this time, has known since...since the first time he lost Cas and couldn't sleep without drinking himself unconscious. But it hits him full force now, as breathtaking as if it were brand-new. He _loves_ Cas. And Cas loves him. And they can have this, they really can. Nothing is going to rip it from them, nothing is going to take Cas away.

Nothing, perhaps, except Dean's own issues, numerous and hopelessly tangled as they are. But Dean has been changing, hasn't he? He's been becoming a person who lets himself want things. And what he wants now, more than anything, is for Cas to stay. To know he loves him.

So there, in his dimly-lit room, curled together and sharing breathless air, Cas's eyes roving over him like he doesn't quite believe what he's seeing or what just happened, Dean finally tells him.

And when he falls asleep that night, with Cas still pressed against him, warm and heavy and alive and _his_...Dean Winchester finally has everything he's ever wanted.

**Author's Note:**

> The song Dean plays for Cas is called "A Man Who Was Gonna Die Young" by Eric Church. It has lived in my brain and on my Destiel playlist for years now.


End file.
